


Crying in Places We Really Shouldn't

by Tsuukiyomi



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: +"they're bombs" voice from Spongebob+, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, and has an extensive collection of (his mom's) 80's freestyle music, but Evan is a secret bundle of anxiety that hides behind threats, except Connor is still very much a punk, kind of based on the cotton candy and hunters AU done by softmushie/mushroomie, they're both punks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuukiyomi/pseuds/Tsuukiyomi
Summary: "So," he began carefully, "how'd you break your arm?" Conversations that didn't devolve into petty insults and screaming matches didn't come easy to Connor, and he felt a little bit proud of himself for starting off his apology with an innocuous question.Amends were to be made, and Connor was going to make progress with his olive branch, however shitty and awkward it actually was. He inwardly congratulated himself and considered taking a victory smoke at the orchard later and skipping school after the hostility between him and Hansen blew over.One last victory smoke before. . .Connor tried not to think much about it.But Hansen just scrunched his face and looked at Connor like he was a fucking idiot. "I'm sorry, but is the asshole who shoved me onto the floor this morning suddenly concerned about my wellbeing?"The day Connor shoved Evan Hansen—the same Hansen that broke an upperclassman's nose last year for harassing Kleinman—the same Hansen that currently had a broken arm in a cast,shit,he decided to do one good deed before killing himself with pills in the Ellison State Park forest—Be the bigger person and apologize.





	1. A Curb is a Good Place to Break Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely self-indulgent, but if we're being real, that's what all fanfiction is.
> 
> Even if only one person enjoys my sorry excuse for prose, that's alright with me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor shows a blatant disregard for personal boundaries and fucks up twice in one day.

"You think I'm a freak?"

"No, I don't—"

"I'm not the freak."

"But I wasn't—"

" _You're_ the fucking freak!"

It wasn't like the cast wasn't noticeable or anything like that—it took up Hansen's entire god damn forearm, and yet, Connor didn't notice it until _after_ he had shoved the kid. 

 _Even on my last day, I can't leave things be and not fuck up everything._ But it also wasn't like shoving him was unjustified. Kleinman was being an arrogant asshole, as always, before turning tail and fleeing the scene before Connor could get his hands on him. It was just bad luck that Hansen was the only one still around in the aftermath. And then that fucker had the _nerve_ to laugh at him. It was completely fair that he was on the floor and not Connor, broken arm or otherwise.

So why did Connor still feel guilty? Was it normal for people to be overly emotional leading up to their suicide attempt?

Whatever the reason was, it led Connor to linger in lieu of storming away. He watched over Hansen—not helping him, but not attacking him either. The sympathetic part of him, albeit a very small part, winced as Hansen picked himself up with only one hand. Hansen shot a curious glance over, surprised that Connor was still there. The feeling was mutual. Connor didn't know what the hell he was even doing _at school_ , attending before committing suicide, but he had told his mom he would attend the next day, and he supposed that a small part of him felt guilty for that half-lie.

"Believe me," Hansen said, "next time someone laughs, it won't be at  _you_." And with that cryptic message, Hansen picked his bag up and left, presumably to head off to class, because somehow he was a goody-two-shoes/teacher's pet despite carrying the same punk attitude that Connor did.

"Well, he's right," Connor growled, turning to walk in the opposite direction, "I won't be around long enough for anyone else to laugh." He stalked through the hallway towards a fire exit under an older stairwell. There really was no point in spending time with two thousand other students when he could be spending it alone getting high until he used up the remainder of his stash.

But as he was about to place his weight against the crash bar, Connor paused,  feeling guilty again. Not for what his mom would think when she heard the news—because Connor had been feeling  _that_ weight of guilt since the moment he stole the sleeping pills from the medicine cabinet—but guilt for. . . shoving Hansen?

"What the fuck," he mumbled, not as a question, but more as an attempt to articulate his feelings. He was  _not_ going to apologize to Hansen. Hansen seemed tough—it was just one shove—and it wasn't like it was going to fuck up his entire life the way living under the Murphy roof could. And yet, if Connor didn't apologize, he wouldn't really be that different from his father, would he?

 

* * *

 

And that was how, during lunch—instead of skipping to have a final meal in a place that was decidedly  _not_ school—Connor found himself trailing after Hansen into the computer lab to apologize.

"So," he began carefully, "how'd you break your arm?" Conversations that didn't devolve into petty insults and screaming matches didn't come easy to Connor, and he felt a little bit proud of himself for starting off his apology with an innocuous question.

Amends were to be made, and Connor was going to make progress with his olive branch, however shitty and awkward it actually was. He inwardly congratulated himself and considered taking a victory smoke at the orchard later and skipping school after the hostility between him and Hansen blew over. _One last victory smoke before. . ._ Connor tried not to think much about it.

But Hansen just scrunched his face and looked at Connor like he was a fucking idiot. "I'm sorry, but is the asshole who shoved me onto the floor this morning suddenly concerned about my wellbeing?" 

But maybe Connor  _was_  a fucking idiot. Not for already fucking up his apology, but for even thinking about apologizing in the first place. 

 _Should have known better than to think that we'd get along,_ he thought bitterly, disappointment churning within him.

Connor stalked over to Hansen's hunched over position by the wall outlet, perching himself next to the laptop on the table. "Listen up, Hansen, and listen good, cause I'm only gonna say it once. I came here to apologize for  _shoving_  you—even if it was entirely justified cause you and Kleinman were ganging up on me." But Hansen still had that pinched look on his face that made Connor feel like _he_ was the one in the wrong. It was the same expression his mom would wear. 

 _Not important right now_ , he thought angrily. 

"And I tried to tell you, I wasn't fucking laughing at you. Jared's stunt was all his own," Evan shifted his eyes to the side, gaze sharpening into a glare, "and it wasn't right for him to say that shit to you." Connor wondered what exactly Hansen had been doing if he wasn't laughing at  _him_ , but he thought better of it and didn't ask. The conversation was going decently, and he didn't want to fuck things up with what could be taken as an insensitive comment. 

Hansen cleared his throat uncomfortably, and awkwardly rubbed his cast. "I—I forgive you. Just make sure next time you shove someone, you're entirely sure that they did something to piss you off." Leaving it at that, he stood up, quietly packing his laptop away.

The deed was done. Hansen was cordial, the misunderstanding was cleared, and the guilt that had been building up since he had shoved a kid with a  _fucking broken arm_ had been appeased.

Connor looked over at said kid with the fucking broken arm, absentmindedly observing him. Evan Hansen was. . . something, alright. He certainly wasn't the doormat he used to be before that incident back in junior year, but he didn't seem to be the violent asshole that everybody assumed—and rightly so—that Connor was. Connor stood up too, patting his pockets to check that he still had his lighter. The victory smoke was still on. "Well, Hansen, I'll keep that in mind, and make sure to only shove Kleinman in the future. Be seeing you then—"

The ungodly screech of the old school printer firing up interrupted his farewell and gave him pause. Enough pause to notice Hansen freeze like a deer stuck in the headlights.

Connor trailed off his sentence and laughed awkwardly. "You alright, Hansen?"

 

* * *

 

"—alright, Hansen?" Connor's voice rang out, sounding muddled as if he were underwater.

Or maybe Evan was the one underwater, suddenly feeling like he could sink and drown and die.

_No, no, this can't be happening! This isn't how it was supposed to go! They can't find out about me now!_

Evan clutched his backpack tighter to his shoulder, now more than ever a shield than a bag. If he could just casually circle around Connor to grab the paper and bolt out, then maybe things would be all right.

"This yours?" Connor asked, hand waving the paper around casually. 

 _Too casually_ , Evan thought,  _for someone that knows._  But how could he  _not_  know when Evan was thinking so single-mindedly about it that it must have been broadcasting to the entire room, if not the entire school?

Maybe he could lie through his teeth and say it wasn't his? And then—no, because that printer was so vintage that its range of connection only extended past the first few tables, and Evan was the only one in the vicinity of the computer lab anyway. Maybe he could say that it was a passing ghost— _okay_ , who was he kidding, he had to come forward and admit it was his before he dug himself even further into the ground with an even more outlandish lie. "I—It's," Evan cleared his throat, more to fill the space of time than to relieve his esophagus, "Yeah, it's mine. For a, for—I've got this writing assignment, nothing more."  _Nothing more?_   Who said that unless they had something to hide? And _fuck_ , he was stuttering again. He'd never had to keep up his act any longer than ten minutes without Jared there to back him up, and it was getting ridiculous just how quickly he was beginning to crack.

Connor's eyes glanced over the top of the paper, and Evan's heartbeat stumbled up a set of stairs.  _Please don't read it, please don't read it_ _—for the love of God, please don't read it._  

If Jared had been there, he most certainly would have laughed at the situation. A Jewish kid, pretending to be a school punk, praying to a Christian figure to help keep his secret from an actual school punk.

"Huh, letters to ourselves," Connor mumbled—more to himself, it seemed. "I remember that shit from last year," he continued, somewhat lost in thought, before minutely shaking his head and staring Evan down. "But I thought you also had Levenson?" he asked. "I could have sworn that you and Kleinman had that class together cause he was going on and on about. . ." Connor trailed off, gaze fixed somewhere on the lower half of the paper. "About. . ." he tried again, suddenly becoming more and more distracted by the actual content of the letter and not the false context.

Evan rushed forward to snatch it out of his hand, but Connor used the three inches that he had over him to his advantage and held it aloft to continue reading it. Connor seemed to be taking his sweet damn time reading the paper, going back to scan previously read lines and mouthing along with them.  _Probably committing them to memory so that he can tell other people,_  Evan thought bitterly.

 _Tell who? You know he's struggling with making friends just like you,_  a voice that sounded far too much like his mother said for him to be comfortable with the thought for long. 

When Connor finished reading the letter, he scrunched his face in deep thought, not once looking at Evan even as he handed it back. Evan swiped it from his hand, carefully folding it before thinking better of it and carelessly stuffing it in the pocket of his leather jacket. Not like Dr. Sherman was ever going to see  _that_  one anyway.

Evan fixed his gaze onto the cheap carpet, already knowing the next thing to come out of Connor Murphy's mouth—

_"I was right! You really are a fucking freak."_

But at that point, Evan was too drained from social interaction to do anything about it and would just take it. He clenched and unclenched his fists, standing there and waiting for Connor to insult him—maybe even shove him over like he did earlier. He probably deserved it anyway.

. . . But it never came.

Evan gazed up, physically and emotionally exhausted, but not so much that he couldn't shoot a confused look at Connor.

"What does that mean?" Connor asked, looking at Evan but not really looking  _at_ him. "That you couldn't jump out of a tree right?"

Evan narrowed his eyes, not in anger, but in incredulity at just how fucked up the day had become. "You wanted to know how I broke my arm." He gestured towards the space between them. "There's your fucking answer." It was the most that Evan had ever seen of Connor Murphy, and he, personally, thought that it was enough to last a lifetime, and strode to the door. The entire ordeal was exhausting, and it would do Evan good to skip and head home.

He shot Connor a cursory look, placing his palm on the door handle.

"If you tell anyone—Jared  _included_ —I won't be the only one with a broken arm. . . if you catch my drift." If Connor said anything in response to his threat, Evan didn't hear it. It didn't matter. He didn't care anymore. And with that, Evan opened the door and stormed out the computer lab.

Straight out the school.

Straight out the parking lot.

Straight over to the curb where he sat down and cried.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Evan Hansen,_

_It turns out, this wasn't an amazing day after all. This isn't going to be an amazing week or an amazing year. Because. . . Why would it be?_

_Oh, I know! Because I couldn't even jump out of a tree right! The only person that cares about me besides my mom is Jared, and it seems more like he keeps me around to intimidate people and to pay off his car insurance. Serves me right for trying to protect him last year._

_The only other person to genuinely be nice to me was Zoe Murphy, who I don't even know, and who doesn't know me. Sure, Alana Beck is nice, but it's only so she can talk to someone about herself._

_Maybe if I could just talk to Zoe, then maybe. . . No, nothing would be different at all. She only talked to me because her brother shoved me. And then there's that._

_Connor Murphy: the kid that's everything I pretend to be. I guess if it wasn't for Jared pretending to be my friend, I'd be as alone as he was. But maybe being alone would be better than having a fake friend._

_I wish everything was different. I wish that I was a part of. . . something. I wish that anything I said. . . mattered to anyone. I mean, face it: would anybody besides my mom even notice if I disappeared tomorrow? I bet Dad wouldn't even care_ — _and if he did, he'd be overjoyed that he wouldn't have to bother to call every year anymore._

 

_Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend,_

_Me_

 

_P.S. Rewrite this letter and replace it before the next session with Dr. Sherman._

 


	2. Trees are Acceptable Places to Cry Under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor apologizes to Hansen.
> 
>  
> 
> _Again._
> 
>  
> 
> What the fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is _up_ my dudes? I rewrote this chapter _three_ times: the second time because I hated the entire thing, and the third time because it didn't save. Using my anger constructively, I had committed the entire chapter to memory and written the whole entire thing once more.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Holy shit._

Ever since Hansen had left, Connor had been standing in the same position, still as a statue, even as the lunch bell had blared through the speakers,

. . . Ten minutes ago, if the clock was anything to go by in measuring the passage of time in the hellhole that was school.

 _But that doesn't fucking matter,_ Connor thought, angrily—anxiously?—tugging on the drawstring of his hoodie.  _Because Hansen gets it._

Connor didn't know exactly what Hansen "getting" it would entail, but he'd burn that bridge when he'd get to it. But in a good way.

Right after he realized that he had burned the very first bridge—in a bad way this time, Connor was shit at metaphors—he was required to cross, because he had  _fucked up, fucked up so bad—_

"Shit! I read his letter, who  _does that_?" Suddenly feeling overwhelmed, or maybe the feeling had been building up and Connor just hadn't noticed, he sat down on the edge of the nearest table.

The table that supported the weight of the printer, the printer that had spat out Hansen's deepest,  _darkest_ secrets, the secrets that Connor had  _read_  and—

Connor let out a groan as he buried his face in his hands.

"What is wrong with me?"

 

* * *

 

Evan wasn't doing any better, still sitting on the curb after his breakdown as he had remembered that he'd promised his mom that he'd be driven straight to Dr. Sherman's after school. It was better to stay at school than to head home and explain why he had to cut class in the first place.

 _Wouldn't that add fuel to the fire,_ Evan thought. 

Dr. Sherman already thought he was a handful, she didn't need to know that Ellison Senior High's resident loner had read his letter detailing his failed suicide  _immediately_  after signing his cast but also after shoving him in the hallway.

She especially didn't need to know that Evan even had a failed suicide to detail.

Huffing aloud, Evan reached across his chest to firmly secure his jacket around his cast. He wasn't exactly wearing it, and he was sure that he looked stupid with only his dominant arm in a sleeve, but for once in his life, he didn't care what people thought of him.

The weight of the leather jacket grounded him. Made him feel comfortable. Safe, even. 

Gripping the jacket, Evan allowed himself to bury his face into the inner fabric of the collar to recollect his thoughts. He breathed in deeply the scent of pure leather.

Considerably calmer than he had been all day, Evan decided that he would be spending the rest of the hour outside, consequences be damned. He had study hall, which meant having no one to report to, and as such, no one to report on his absence. It wasn't like anyone was dying to sit with him at lunch either.

 _Jared won't even notice,_ Evan thought bitterly, loathing his inability to suppress the note of sadness that was underneath the anger. He let out a distracting hum that he hoped would chase off the rebellious thoughts.

It did.

Leaning back as best he could on one arm as the other was cradled to his chest, Evan flicked his gaze thoughtfully to the sparse clouds in the sky, lost in thought and dwelling on the day's events.

He supposed that, out of context, the noise  _did_  sound an awful lot like a laugh—quiet and condescending in a way that Evan thought traveled his way often. 

_And travels Connor's way, too, it seems._

But it was never to mock Connor or anything like that, moreso that it had been meant to comfort Evan and detract himself and his thoughts from venturing into the territory that detailed all the different ways Connor would soundly beat him in Jared's steed.

_And there I go with those thoughts again. I need to stop that._

A lesser, almost minuscule, part of Evan, whose voice sounded like no one that he had ever met, helpfully piped up and mentioned that Connor had actually hurt him, though not to the extent that had been expected.

 _That's not fucking helping. We're trying to be less paranoid of the world, not jumping at nonexistent shadows,_ Evan thought, scowling as he abruptly stood up, shrugging his backpack over his shoulder and marching over to the nearest tree.

He dropped the backpack without further ceremony, roughly falling against it and briefly wincing as an edge of a notebook dug into his neck. 

From there, the leaves of the deciduous—A _golden rain tree_ , Evan absentmindedly observed—served as a protective barrier between the ever-watchful gaze of the sun and his person. Because stepping into the sun was meant for people that had places to go. And Evan—

"It's not meant for me," he finished aloud. "I don't hang out with people, I don't go  _out_  at all except for school, and I can't even function properly without—" Evan turned a sharp inhale into a deep breath, holding it even as the sound of his slowing heartbeat thundered in his ears.

He wasn't going to think like that. 

He was good. 

He was fine.

He was going to be. He was going to try.

"I am going to lay here and carve my own time. I am going to think about trees. Trees are a safe topic—" 

And Evan had chosen to try to kill himself among the things that he had held beloved, thoroughly tainting his loving memories of nature.

He abruptly threw a hand in the air. 

"Fucking, just—unbelievable!" he shouted, before digging into his pocket for his phone. He grumbled in distaste, searching for smooth plastic only to find the rough edges of a finely creased paper. He yanked out the dreaded letter, tearing it in two.

Or at least, he tried to. It wasn't easy to tear something when one had an arm in a cast. In an act of frustration, Evan crumpled it up, thoroughly crushing it in a closed fist before carelessly discarding it on the grass next to him.

He would pick it up later, he thought, retrieving his phone and scrolling through the nonexistent text messages. Just in case.

 _But alas,_ Evan observed,  _Empty, like always. I could write angsty sonnets about my life and pass them off as Shakespeare at this point._

With a flick of his thumb, Evan mind-numbingly wandered through app after app before scrolling through his list of song titles, all illegally downloaded courtesy of Jared, though not without some ribbing.

_"Are you serious? Most people use the internet to download porn and mainstream pop music for free, and you want me to use it to download the 80's biggest hits? You really are a fucking weirdo."_

And characteristically, it wasn't the teasing, gentle kind that friends were meant to do. Real friends. Not people like Jared who—who said they would do nice things for the sake of money and not because they valued your existence and genuinely found your conversations scintillating.

Evan quickly sat up, resolutely ignoring the brief twinges of pain from his arm and the fact that his eyes had been watering. He was hit by a revelation, and he wasn't going to let anything stand in his way. Not even Jared.

Feeling more inspired than Evan had ever felt in his life, he clenched his fist until his fingers felt sore.

"I don't fucking need him," he whispered. Taking a deep breath, he chanced in raising his voice. "I don't fucking need Jared Kleinman!" 

"That's good. He's a piece of shit when he wants to be—which seems to be all the time." 

Evan flinched so violently that he felt he was in one of those blur memes that Jared had been hellbent on sending him throughout the day. Slowly, hesitantly, he turned around, protectively attempting to hide his expression with a hand.

Leaning against the golden rain tree as if he owned it, Connor looked down at Evan with an unreadable expression that made Evan consider playing in traffic as a safer scenario.

_For fuck's sake, I should have skipped school like a normal person._

 

* * *

 

It wasn't easy finding Hansen. That boy could make himself scarce when he wanted to be, navigating the halls in a cast and somehow donning a conspicuous leather jacket while remaining unseen from the majority of the school population.

The complete opposite of Connor. He could have been wearing a nondescript hoodie and jeans and still get jeered at by assholes like Kleinman for something as mundane as his hair. 

He did, actually, just today. Case in point.

And that was exactly why Connor was perfect for finding Hansen, searching through the exact same places that he would go to seek solace.

He found it odd that Hansen would find it under a tree considering that he had previously jumped out of one, but he supposed it was one of those things where you wanted to die with the things that you loved.

It hit Connor with a pang of something he couldn't identify that Evan had tried to kill himself in the white noise of nature. Sympathy, perhaps, because that was exactly what Connor was attempting to do later that day.

 _Later,_  he thought, interrupting himself.  _Focus on the present._ The present entailed calmly apologizing for his actions and making it up to Hansen before casting himself from his worldly affairs and making his peace with death.

. . . Jesus, that was heavy.

"Hansen, I'm a piece of shit, and I'm  _sorry,_ and I know that you already gave me a second chance, but I was wondering if you could find it in your heart to give me a third one." Connor found himself kneeling on the ground in an attempt to make himself appear less threatening, but he was more concerned about the jumbling thoughts bouncing through his head.

 _Where did that mess of an apology come from?_ Connor thought as a warm rush of embarrassment welled up from within him. Or maybe it was the heat from the sun being absorbed into the layers and layers of dark clothing. He resisted the urge to shed his hoodie in front of Hansen—Hansen, who he couldn't even make eye contact with after blurting out that word salad.

_"Word salad." Good god, I sound like my mom._

"Uh— _sure._  Just, uh, don't. . . Don't—" Hansen closed his eyes as he took a few deep breaths. Opening them, he looked at Connor with a resolve that made him feel as if he were on a dais before a judge.

"Let's never speak of what happened today to anyone but each other." Sagging in relief in a way that Connor hoped was only minutely noticeable, he blew out a relieved exhale.

"Hansen, you've got a deal." Hansen did this odd thing where he smiled and raised his eyebrows in a way that Connor now recognized as him being uncomfortable but attempting to remain polite.

"Call me Evan. You'll be doing me a favor more than anything."

Connor shrugged, moving into a seated position and leaning against the tree next to  _Evan_. He'd have to get used to saying that.

"Only if you call me Connor. Murphy seems more like something you'd call my parents or my sister." At that, a placid expression fell over Evan's face.

_Fuck, what'd I do? I mentioned my—Oh._

Shifting close enough to Evan to get his attention, Connor looked him in the eye, fighting the urge to get up and run in the opposite direction. He had to prove he was genuine, cowardice or not.

"Listen, I'm not mad about your letter."

Evan shifted his head, scrutinizing Connor as if that would give him a better idea of understanding him. "You're not?"

Connor shrugged again. "I mean, at first I was," he admitted, giving in to the urge to observe the grass with the utmost concentration. "But then I read the whole letter and realized it was—"

"Sad. Miserable. Pathetic. Take your pick," Hansen—no,  _Evan—_ finished, letting out a soft bark of laughter accompanied by a sad smile. 

Connor briefly considered roughly bumping his shoulder to get him to listen, but thought better of it when he remembered, for the second time that day, that Evan was in a cast and, subsequently, not made of stone.

"Evan." Out of the corner of his eye, Connor noticed that he had started, shocked that his name was used despite earlier mentioning that Connor ought to use it in place of his surname. 

"I realized that it was the exact same thing that I was feeling," Connor finished, feeling vulnerable for having made the first verbal admission of what he was going through that he fervently hoped wouldn't fall on deaf ears. 

Evan, looking rather shell shocked, focused on the ground. He absentmindedly rubbed his cast, and Connor found his eyes following the movement, unsure what to do himself.

". . . Oh," Evan replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I am in such a creative bender, I wrote the entirety of chapter two today (the second and third editions, at least), and now I'm going to start on chapter three. . . And probably will end up playing video games for five hours straight in between.
> 
> Ah, well, progress is progress.


End file.
